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This stem cell research and eventual therapy is a long way off yet. But this is a drastically needed first step.
Scientists want to do research on human stem cells, to do this they need human embryos. The problem is that normally you need human eggs and human sperm to make these. Understandably few people are willing to donate their eggs.
So they used a cunning way around this. You take a cows or other mammals egg (freely availible, embryo transfer has been used in cattle for years), remove all the genetic material inside it, and then take a human cell of any kind (certain forms are best, cheek I believe is a good candidate), remove ALL of its DNA, and put this into the now empty cows egg.
Egg sorts its machinery out, and begins to replicate- hey presto, a human embryo, which if it was implanted in a human uterus, would produce a perfectly normal human baby.
But all the embryos (a tiny ball of unspecialised ‘starter’ cells at this stage) are destroyed before then, once the stem cells are removed.
Stem cells could be lifesaving one day, and have the potential to replace or repair our bodies in many different ways. Stem cells as their name suggest can grow into any kind of cell or tissue type you want- if you want a new liver for example, you can grow them into one, there is even a bit of research being done so that you could have all your teeth taken out, and have new ones in their places, home grown, in your mouth by placing stem cells in the required areas.
Growing an ear is a lot simpler of course, but that was the first step. I seem to remember the boys ear was a complete success?
Antibiotics, particularly broad spectrum ones, should never really be used unless it is a last resort, Ie you are about to die from pneumonia.
You are doing yourself no favours by taking antibiotics, they have side effects, starting with the almost total loss of all the ‘domesticated’ bacteria in your gut, that do you no harm at all. They also have other side effects, lest we forget they are chemicals designed to poison living things.
Many illnesses are in fact caused by viruses, who have taken hold opportunistically because bacteria have sprung up somewhere. Doctors are rightly very reluctant to prescribe antibiotics because over time, bacteria grow resistant, and bacteria do not multiply and form new novel strains at the same that we can invent antibiotics.
You may well be able to purchase amoxicillin (this is a commonly used drug in pigs actually) at the chemist everytime you get a cold, but there Is no way I would take them- all well and good until one day you end up in hospital with some more serious problem, they prescribe antibiotics and lo and behold, they don’t work…
You are supposed to continue taking a course of antibiotics because they do not have a good half life in the body, so need replacing regularly, and of course you want to kill all the pathogenic organisms you are trying to get rid of, rather than expose a few to a non-lethal dose of antibiotics and thus encourage them to become resistant.
Setaside was done away with this year in light of recent food shortages and price hikes. I do agree with previous posts, we do import far too much food than we really should, although the problem is that people today now expect to be able to go shopping and buy Strawberries, lamb and other products, all year round, when previously you could only get them in season.
I have found the produce at farmers markets to be good value, but they are not a regular feature in every town or city, you just cannot rely on them for your weekly shop.
And on a slightly differen slant, the vast amount of subsidy money paid to farmers over the years directly went into agricultural production, hence making the price of goods cheaper on the shelf, cheaper in some cases than the cost of production- you have been paying the real cost of food for years, only you didn’t know it.
The ultimate beneficiaries were of course supermarkets, who made a massive margin on products they bought at very low (unsustainably low) cost and flogged to you for a much greater amount. Supermarkets are not cheap, this is a lie promoted in very expensive marketing campaigns designed to trick you- even the prices between two different stores are very different- they do massive amounts of research about an area before they build a store, they know how much people earn, how much they are likely to spend, what competition is in the area, and thus set their prices accordingly. In the town where I live, there is no other supermarket for about 15 miles, their prices are understandably extortionate.
And finally, the householder today spends less on food in real terms, than he/she did in 1890, despite a 6 fold increase in the calorific content in their diet. How else is this possible? For the first time in history, the rich stay thin and the poor get fat. You can literally afford to eat yourself to death today.
Hello
The thing about fuel prices is that they are far removed from the world price of oil, and indeed the world price of petrol; most of the cost in the UK, around 70% of it is tax or duty.
It is unfair to penalise everyone- the rich (who don’t care about spending an extra £20 a week on fuel) and the poorest families who simlpy have no alternative but to drive.
Its not about reducing car use, or greenhouse gas emissions, its mostly to make the inland revenue money.
You won’t tax the motorist of the roads because in many cases there is no alternative. Some people have no access to buses, particularly in rural areas, and trains, well they are often more expensive than actually driving to your destination.
People are caught in a trap they can’t get out of.
Of course, in years past, people worked much closer to home, and indeed, a little longer ago, most women didnt work, so they had no need for a car everyday.
